Trend Research: Tech and AI companies will accelerate their deployment of stablecoins in 2026, with WLFI and USD1 expected to be the biggest beneficiaries.

2026 will be a pivotal year for large-scale institutional adoption of blockchain, with stablecoins representing the most fundamental and largest-scale blockchain application. Trend Research believes that WLFI (World Liberty Financial) and its USD1 stablecoin will become one of the fastest-growing blockchain projects in terms of adoption and application scenarios . In the future era of on-chain finance, it possesses comprehensive advantages in compliance, brand, users, and liquidity, becoming the infrastructure for a multi-trillion dollar on-chain financial market.

I. Stablecoins are poised for explosive growth

“In the entire history of fintech, we have almost never seen a project that starts globally. The business model of stablecoins is giving rise to a whole new batch of founders, builders and products who are no longer limited by geopolitical barriers and whose goal is the global market from the very first moment of product launch.”

1. The growth trend of stablecoins

Stablecoins experienced rapid growth in 2025, with their market capitalization increasing from $130.553 billion at the beginning of the year to $308.585 billion, an annualized growth rate of 136%. Even after the 10/11 attacks, the market capitalization of stablecoins quickly returned to new highs. US Treasury Secretary Bessant predicted that after the passage of the stablecoin bill in the United States, the market capitalization of stablecoins would rapidly grow to over $2 trillion in the coming years.

We believe that, driven by favorable US regulations, pilot programs and adoption by technology and AI companies, and the move towards blockchain in Wall Street finance, stablecoins will experience explosive growth in 2026.

2. US regulatory policies

The Genius Act, passed 25 years ago, filled the regulatory gap for stablecoins. It was the first comprehensive federal regulatory framework for stablecoins, clearly defining the qualifications of issuers, reserve requirements, and operational standards. It mandated a 1:1 peg between stablecoins and the US dollar, promoting the penetration of the dollar into the global crypto economy and cross-border payments through stablecoins, thus consolidating the dollar's dominance in international finance. Furthermore, through mandatory reserve rules (requiring reserve assets to be short-term US Treasury bonds or cash), it created structural demand in the US Treasury market, alleviating US fiscal pressure.

With the passage of the Genius Act in 2026, more participants will enter the development of stablecoins, accelerating institutional adoption and blockchain integration.

3. The layout of technology and AI companies

Web2 traditional technology and AI companies are piloting stablecoins in preparation for large-scale adoption when the time is right.

Among traditional Web2 technology companies, PayPal has expanded its PYUSD stablecoin to enterprise applications, including a partnership with YouTube allowing creators to receive payments in stablecoins; Stripe acquired Bridge for over $1 billion and partnered with Visa to launch stablecoin-linked cards, allowing users to directly use their stablecoin balances at merchants accepting Visa. In 2025, Visa expanded its support for multiple stablecoins (such as USDC) and reported a shift in stablecoin usage from holding to spending, indicating that stablecoins are poised to become mainstream payment tools.

In the field of AI, 2025 is a year of accelerated AI development, and the further development of AI will inevitably drive the demand for machine-to-machine transactions and micropayments. Blockchain may become the ultimate infrastructure for AI and machine interaction. The emergence of the x402 protocol is a fusion of AI and Crypto, driven and adopted by companies including Coinbase, Google, Cloudflare, Circle, Visa, and AWS, possessing a large customer base and consumption scenarios. A new narrative about AI and payments is visibly brewing.

Companies outside the US are also vying for stablecoin applications. Trip.com, the overseas version of Ctrip, has already enabled stablecoin payments for global users, currently supporting USDT and USDC. Technology and payment companies including Ant Group, JD.com, and Grab have explicitly entered the stablecoin field.

4. Wall Street's financial blockchain

Stablecoins are the most important underlying foundation for integrating traditional finance into the blockchain. They make money programmable and decentralized, and serve as the basis for the flow and settlement of all on-chain financial assets.

A key motivation for Wall Street to promote the development of stablecoins is to enable "everything to be on the blockchain" after the infrastructure is completed.

SEC Chair Paul Atkins once declared, "The next step will be digital assets, market digitization, and tokenization... all U.S. markets will be on-chain within two years." BlackRock CEO Larry Fink stated, "Tokenization of all financial assets is the future trend, and we have already entered this stage... ETFs are the first step in the technological revolution of financial markets. The second step will be the tokenization of all financial assets."

BlackRock has launched and operates the BUIDL fund, tokenizing U.S. Treasury bonds as blockchain assets, enabling 24/7 instant settlement and institutional-grade liquidity; JPMorgan conducts on-chain trading and settlement through its Kinexys platform, having processed over $1.5 trillion in transactions; Goldman Sachs operates a digital asset platform, issuing and trading tokenized bonds; and Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. (DTCC), after receiving SEC approval, provides tokenization services, processing an on-chain version of over $3.5 trillion in securities transactions. These businesses, utilizing blockchain technology for asset tokenization, on-chain trading, and settlement, represent the trend of traditional finance transitioning to on-chain operations. Based on institutional pilots and production-level deployments, they aim to improve liquidity, efficiency, and global access.

Currently, the total market capitalization of traditional finance exceeds 400 trillion, the total market capitalization of the crypto market is 3.3 trillion, the total market capitalization of stablecoins is 0.3 trillion, and the total market capitalization of RWA is 0.02 trillion. According to industry forecasts from Standard Chartered Bank, Redstone, RWA.xyz, etc., by 2030-2034, 10%-30% of global assets may be tokenized, which translates to a scale of 40-120 trillion. RWA's total market capitalization is expected to expand to 1000 times its current level.

II. WLFI Ushers in a New Era of Panoramic Finance

In the future, every company in the world must have a blockchain and AI strategy; otherwise, it will not be able to adapt to the competitive efficiency of new technologies and will be unable to achieve new scaled development.

Stablecoins will become the intersection of finance, internet, and AI companies, as well as cross-border trade and local payments. Given that stablecoins are poised for explosive growth, Trend Research believes that WLFI and USD1 will be the most successful crypto companies in this wave, surpassing past paradigms and becoming the fastest-growing blockchain projects.

1. USD1 will become the fastest-growing stablecoin.

Following WLFI TGE, USD1 has experienced another round of rapid growth, increasing from $2.462 billion to $3.438 billion in three months, a growth rate of 40%, making it the fastest-growing mainstream stablecoin in the past three months. It ranks seventh in terms of market capitalization among stablecoins, soon to surpass PYUSD (PayPal USD), with an average daily trading volume of approximately $1-3 billion. Currently, it is mainly distributed across BNB Chain (55.61%) and Ethereum (37.38%).

Trend Research predicts that USD1 will rapidly surpass 10 billion in size by 2026, becoming the fastest-growing stablecoin , and will eventually become a trillion-dollar stablecoin in the long term.

2. USD1 will become the most legitimate stablecoin.

USD1 complies with the requirements of the Genius Act. In terms of reserves and collateral assets, it is 100% backed by real dollar-equivalent assets, including dollar cash or deposits, short-term U.S. Treasury bonds and other cash equivalents (such as money market funds), ensuring that every USD1 has an equivalent dollar asset, theoretically achieving 1:1 redemption and redemption.

Regarding reserve verification and auditing mechanisms, the USD1 team publishes regular reserve reports/audits, transparently disclosing the reserve quantity and asset distribution to the public. The dollar reserves will be regularly audited by an independent third-party company.

In terms of custody, USD1's reserves are held by BitGo Trust, which manages over $100 billion in reserves, processes over $3 trillion in transactions, and serves more than 1,500 institutional clients in over 50 countries worldwide, handling 20% of the value of on-chain Bitcoin transactions. BitGo Trust's custody clients include Circle, Paxos, WBTC, Bitstamp, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Vanguard.

Compared to other projects, WLFI and USD1 are backed by the most powerful presidential families. Trend Research believes that USD1 will further advance on the path to compliance and become one of the most legitimate stablecoins.

The adoption wave of USD1 is beginning.

Since WLFI TGE, the adoption of USD1 has gradually begun. Binance has added nearly 20 new USD1 trading pairs, and trading platforms like StableStock are expanding USD1 trading to include US stocks. As USD1's scale and compliance further strengthen, it is foreseeable that by 2026, USD1 will expand from cryptocurrencies to traditional finance, internet trading, offline payments, and other scenarios.

4. WLFI builds a panoramic financial ecosystem

Starting with the USD1 stablecoin, WLFI is building a panoramic financial ecosystem that aims to bring 6 billion people to the blockchain and integrate them with technology and financial services.

In the future, WLFI will also develop the WLFI App into a wallet portal that integrates various scenarios, and launch DeFi products such as lending to achieve efficient asset transfer and returns. It will also launch a series of RWA products to form a complete blockchain financial ecosystem, and expand WLFI's adoption through native methods such as wealth management returns, points system, and governance voting.

Trend Research predicts that 2026 will be a year of explosive institutional adoption for blockchain. WLFI will start from USD1, surpassing the development paradigm of previous blockchain projects, and ushering in a new era of blockchain and finance integration with astonishing speed, scale and panoramic ecosystem.